A Dystopian Biography, An Adventure in the Caucasus, and a Cocktail That's Like Tropical Ice Cream

Plus: Rosie Danan's latest romance will make you howl

Hey friends, apologies for not being around for so long. I have been a little…not depressed, exactly? Becalmed, I think might be a better word.

Honestly, writing Book 3 has been feeling kind of like I’m in the middle of swimming across a massive lake. I’ve made enough progress that I can’t see where I came from, but I’m still not close enough to see the opposite shore clearly. Don’t get me wrong, I still love these characters and want to figure out what happens to them, but sticking with it for 90,000 words is demanding as hell. All I can do is keep swimming and swimming and have faith that I’ll get to the finish eventually - but some days, especially because I don’t have a formal deadline, it’s way too tempting to flip on my back and float instead.

But yesterday it was warm and everything looked green and bright. I’d had a quiet long weekend and a few nights of good sleep, and instead of trying to put my head down at my desk, I sat on a bench in the park and wrote some pages by hand, and then went to the library and finally, FINALLY finished the chapter I’d been procrastinating on.

So maybe I can start swimming again? We’ll see.

In other book news, North American readers who are reviewers or Bookstagrammers or involved in publishing in some way: my indie bookstore love letter-slash-culture-clash opposites attract romance Love Walked In is currently available to Read Now on NetGalley! Please check it out and leave a review if you enjoy it.

Recently I read and loved…

Fan Service by Rosie Danan

Rosie Danan is an auto-buy author for me (have you read The Roommate? If not, please go do that immediately), so I was very happy to submerge myself in this very funny and clever paranormal romance/love letter to fandom in all its guises. (He’s the washed-up TV star who’s turned into the werewolf from his show, she’s the former moderator of the show’s biggest fan site). The romance between the two leads is fractious and fun, and I was particularly impressed how Danan gender swapped the usual romance model and wrote an anxious, highly strung, intensely people-pleasing male MC and a prickly, stubborn, anti-social female MC. Neither Devin nor Alex are particularly easy people, but they’re both interesting and complicated and I really enjoyed how they clashed and sparked and pushed each other to be better.

Green Mountains by Caroline Eden

Caroline Eden’s books are a kind of comfort food for me: since I was a kid, I’ve loved the feeling of sitting with a big hardcover in my lap, looking at gorgeous pictures and reading about faraway times and places. Green Mountains is the stunning conclusion to Eden’s trilogy of travel-recipe books (Black Sea and Red Sands are the others) and an in-depth exploration of the food, culture, and landscape of Armenia and Georgia. She hits a great balance between her own stories (there is an anecdote about getting caught in a lightning storm that will have your heart in your mouth) and those of the fascinating people she meets both in person and through her reading: chess grandmasters, artists, mountaineers, the list goes on. It’s the best kind of armchair travel that has put these two countries much higher on my bucket list.

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

When it comes to my precious reading time, I am pretty ruthless. If a book hasn’t caught my interest by page 50, I put it down and find something else to read. But occasionally I get a book that by page 50 has more than held my attention: it totally grips me, to the point where I don’t want to work or talk to anyone or do anything that isn’t totally essential for sustaining life.

Yes, this book is just that good. I didn’t realize I needed the biography of a fictional 1970s-1980s artist/enfant terrible combined with a dystopian alternative history of the United States, but friends, this is such a fulfilling, satisfying read. It’s so tightly woven and wound up, packed with dozens of weird and clever little details about performance art and theocratic societies and a slow, creeping sense of dread. If you see me in person over the next few months, I will be metaphorically shoving this book into your hands.

I also read…The Moon’s a Balloon by David Niven, Bread and Milk by Karolina Ranqvist, Summertime Punchline by Betty Corello, Flirting with Forever by Cara Bastone, The Years by Annie Ernaux, The Last Bell by Donald McRae

And I mixed…a Porn Star Alexander.

As curious an eater as I am, there are certain ingredients/flavors that I will always, always order if they show up on a menu. Bitter leaves with blue cheese and nuts? Check. Mussels? Check. Lamb? Check. Choux pastry? Double check. But my triple check, my all-time favorite, is passion fruit. Ever since drinking Kern’s peach passion fruit nectar as a kid, I can’t get enough of the floral tanginess of it, particularly when it’s combined with other tropical fruit, or chocolate, or best of all, vanilla, like in a Porn Star Martini.

(Bartenders, please pretty please can we DO SOMETHING about the name of this drink?!? It’s just dumb at this point.)

Anyway, last year Richard Godwin of The Spirits came up with pretty much my dream dessert cocktail. It’s based on the Brandy Alexander, a cognac-cream-creme de cacao operation that tastes like the melted remnants of a bowl of particularly fancy chocolate ice cream. Following on that logic, the Porn Star Alexander is like melted orange-passion fruit-vanilla ice cream, i.e. a Solero. Go make it, it’s divine.

(Fellow UK-based lactose intolerant folks, Arla make lactose-free cream that’s what I would call heavy cream. It’s 36% fat, versus single cream’s 24% and double cream’s 48%. It mixes well, whips beautifully, and makes me somewhat less depressed about my uncooperative digestive tract. )

I also drank…a Brigadoon (for anyone who wants a cocktail that tastes like an apricot pie, mix this immediately), a White Negroni at The Marksman, some spectacularly delicious and creative cocktails *hic* at Satan’s Whiskers here in London and at Lucy’s Flower Shop in Stockholm, and Tablas Creek 2011 Panoplie (an INCREDIBLE Châteauneuf-du-Pape style blend, don’t miss it if you get a chance to drink it).

And bonus - some food things!

We drank the Panoplie with a côte de boeuf I cooked myself, following this extremely useful video guide by Henry Harris. I’ll never make steak any other way from here on out. (Yes, he bastes the meat in butter. But honestly, who eats steak for their health?)

When I was in Stockholm I ate the best chocolate chip cookie of my entire life. Truly! If you ever visit the city, go to Krümel Cookies and Crumbs and order the classic cookie. It’s got a crackly crisp outside and soft, chewy middle, with excellent quality chocolate and a sprinkle of sea salt on top. Absolute heaven!